What did you do to your Ranger today? (Part Deux!)

[CamTheHedgehog]

That looks like a direct knock off of a ford racing cover that I seen on summit. Says on that description it’s not compatible with certain axels.
Just missing the ford logo in the blank spot and about $100 on the price tag.

Hence why I bought it, and probably why superj did too.

Annoying that the genuine ford one wouldn’t fit either.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Drilled then air hammered off the rivets for the side brackets for the transmission crossmember last night, still gotta grind them flat then drive out tonight...

 

[ben_2_go]

The distributor went out in my son's '89 Chevy 2500 yesterday. I used my GMC C5500 to tow him 1/4 mile to our driveway. I used the old '01 Strangler with it's mighty 2.5 and 4r44e to pull it the last 60 feet into his parking spot. The old Strangler in low gear barely made it, pulling just over 6000lbs worth of truck. We made it up to Strangler by going on an easy parts run for the Chev 2500 and over to Culver's for dinner and ice cream. My son and I started on the truck last night. I finished it this morning. She needed a distributor and plug wires bad, but the new coil I put on back in January crapped out. It was a Duralast gold. I have an old GM coil, so I put that on. She runs like a top now. Little more pep in that old 5.7 metric 350.

 

[CamTheHedgehog]

Put the hitch on last night, got pics of it today.
I went with the curt round tube, as the square tube is too much of an eyesore for me. I like the more hidden look of the round tube.

 

[Rick W]

Put the hitch on last night, got pics of it today.
I went with the curt round tube, as the square tube is too much of an eyesore for me. I like the more hidden look of the round tube. View attachment 110457View attachment 110457View attachment 110458

Love the license plate. I guess “over” wouldn’t fit?

 

[Bgunner]

Since I had the battery issue I haven't been able to charge my capacitor for my amp. I spent about an hour searching the manufactures web site looking for the manual. Well today I decided to look again but this time I was on a Windows machine and I got one of those site popups for chat with them and took advantage of it. The guy said none of the manuals are online because they didn't meet some ADA something or another but he gave me a download link.

I went out and charged the cap as the instructions said but once I hooked the wires of the amp up to it it started to loose charge, it has a digital readout on it, so i grabbed the multimeter and started checking voltages. I was only getting the same reading with the multimeter so I went from the power wire to the ground connection and still got 9.3v. I wiggled the negative lead around a bit and all of a sudden I got 13.4v. I removed the ground and found that some how rust had formed under the eyelet and with a bit of scraping and scrubbing I cleaned up the connection and suddenly the cap was reading the 13.4v, yes the truck was running at the time. I now have my subwoofer back in action.

I jammed to music all the way home from the GF's house.

 

[scotts90ranger]

So far I've fully removed the 6 rivets I was working on yesterday and wacked the rockers with a hammer handle to get all the dirt out of there so it doesn't fall on me later... next step is to sweep that mess up then get my plate steel out and find some pieces for the side plates of the transmission crossmember and start marking things up and sketching things and drilling holes and such... but before a lot of that I gotta clean up the shop some so I have room for fabrication and rig up some type of setup that will condense less moisture in the air line so I can use my plasma cutter... I have an idea...

 

[CamTheHedgehog]

Drilled then air hammered off the rivets for the side brackets for the transmission crossmember last night, still gotta grind them flat then drive out tonight...

Don’t tell me the transmission crossmember is attached the same way the leaf spring hangers are… ouch.

 

[CamTheHedgehog]

Since I had the battery issue I haven't been able to charge my capacitor for my amp. I spent about an hour searching the manufactures web site looking for the manual. Well today I decided to look again but this time I was on a Windows machine and I got one of those site popups for chat with them and took advantage of it. The guy said none of the manuals are online because they didn't meet some ADA something or another but he gave me a download link.

I went out and charged the cap as the instructions said but once I hooked the wires of the amp up to it it started to loose charge, it has a digital readout on it, so i grabbed the multimeter and started checking voltages. I was only getting the same reading with the multimeter so I went from the power wire to the ground connection and still got 9.3v. I wiggled the negative lead around a bit and all of a sudden I got 13.4v. I removed the ground and found that some how rust had formed under the eyelet and with a bit of scraping and scrubbing I cleaned up the connection and suddenly the cap was reading the 13.4v, yes the truck was running at the time. I now have my subwoofer back in action.

I jammed to music all the way home from the GF's house.

Impossible. Those online chat thingy’s never get results!

Bgunner is a wizard guys.

 

[ben_2_go]

Put the hitch on last night, got pics of it today.
I went with the curt round tube, as the square tube is too much of an eyesore for me. I like the more hidden look of the round tube. View attachment 110457View attachment 110458

My Ranger came with a round tube hitch from Ford. The hitch was stolen off the truck. I bought a Hidden Hitch, same as Curt for the ext. cab 4x4 with the dual overhead cam engine. It came stamped with the Ford data on it. It turned out to be a Ford hitch. Hidden Hitch provided Ford with hitches back in the 90s and early 2000s.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Don’t tell me the transmission crossmember is attached the same way the leaf spring hangers are… ouch.

The style the 4 cylinder trucks get with the wide cross bar with bushings on the end, the frame side brackets are definitely riveted on, the one the V6's got is normally bolted in...

 

[rubydist]

The style the 4 cylinder trucks get with the wide cross bar with bushings on the end, the frame side brackets are definitely riveted on, the one the V6's got is normally bolted in...

Undoubtedly due to the fact that the massive torque of the 4 cylinder engine required the stronger joint...

 

[scotts90ranger]

Yeah, no kidding, why it needs 3 bushings on the transmission/transfer case is beyond me... sure a 4 cylinder has stronger pulses since there's 180 degrees between events instead of 120 degrees but still...

Here's the current pile of spare parts (just noticed the frame brackets were still in in that picture), and in the second pic to the untrained eye it might not look like a transmission crossmember and extended radius arms but it sure will be...

 

[Rick W]

I used my short triple ball Pintle on the Missing Linc to couple up to The Town Cart eye, getting everything ready to head out at 6:30 for Caffiene & Octane.

I had to do a quick upgrade to the tongue jack on the trailer. I pulled the rotary handle, and made a gizmo, so I could run it up and down with the hyper tough battery drill. I didn’t realize the only thing that holds the lower part in place was that bolt down handle. I drilled the shaft a half inch below the existing bolt hole, and put a cotter pin in it so it won’t fall out the bottom.

Then I did a 7 out of 10 wash. No time for perfect. Show is officially 9-12, but I’m planning on getting there at seven to try to get a good spot. We’ll see….

Like any new project, I have to trouble shoot the trailer strobes, statues, pond, etc.

 

[Roert42]

Hence why I bought it, and probably why superj did too.

Annoying that the genuine ford one wouldn’t fit either.

It’s probably one of the best looking covers made for an 8.8.